


Stasis

by HeartsAbyss (ChiaRoseKuro)



Series: In Nothing, We'll Stand [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Hand Jobs, Introspection, M/M, Masturbation, Multiple Songs Songfic, Pining, Post-Chapter 699, Uzumaki Naruto-centric, lots of characters mentioned in passing, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 03:30:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10505514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiaRoseKuro/pseuds/HeartsAbyss
Summary: stasis/ ˈsteɪsɪs, ˈstasɪs /noun.a period or state of inactivityor equilibriumoriginated from Greek ‘sta-‘ base of ‘histanai’, lit. “standing, stoppage; party, faction”His fate, Naruto eventually realizes, is to watch everything he’s loved or needed slip through his fingers, like so many grains of sand in an hourglass.





	

**Author's Note:**

> After three years of dithering, procrastination and rewrites, the fic I had originally wanted to post up on my AO3 first is _done_. This is the main Naruto-centric story in this series so it would be advised to read this one before reading the others. For once, I fell short of my estimated word count for this fic, but it's still quite digressive and involved in certain parts.
> 
> Although I glossed over the masturbation and almost-sex scene, I thought it'd be safer to rate it E, just in case. However, if you're not a fan of homosexuals, heartbreak and other heavy negative emotions, please press the 'back' button; this is not meant to be a fluffy fic and it likely won't bring a smile to your face.
> 
> Special thanks to [this playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBuFvmhVPWCX0N9zRRlOqSWJr73HLtP-j) for providing inspiration in the final rewriting phase; I'd credit the original song which kickstarted the idea, but I don't remember it anymore. Credit must also be given to [this fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1048098) by juuchan for providing the fic's non-linear structure (in chronological order, it goes as 10-1-9-2-etc.) and, ultimately, inspiring me to write this. It's not necessary to read that story before this one, but I'd highly recommend it; the narrative is beautiful in its own right.

* * *

 

The days fade into each other without much fanfare. When he doesn’t notice them, they merge into one long reel, unsalvageable and untouched, but when he does it’s all the same anyway. Whitewashed and faded, like a rusted clockwork doll, Naruto goes through the motions and the world revolves, ever faithful– as it always does. He smiles and nods and bows, and people do the same.

Naruto can no longer remember the last time Sakura punched his shoulder or Hinata stuttered words he could not understand. He no longer cries out when Chouji snatches his food or when he almost trips over Shikamaru’s prone form. Sai’s smiles doesn’t make him stare and Ino’s chatter no longer melds with his own, but it’s okay. Everyone has faded into the periphery, but it’s okay.

He can’t recall their names much, let alone their faces, _but it’s okay_.

In an alternate universe, Naruto might’ve been shocked by this. He had been a boy who craved company and attention, so how had life spat out an adult who shunned both? For a genin who played pranks and fought mock battles and who had the energy of a thousand burning suns, would the person he’s become startle, confuse, even _terrify_ what had once been? The comrades he had lost to death and guilt and shame, he could understand; but the comrades he had lost through sheer numb apathy…

But it’s not quite true, that he had lost them. It’s not quite true that Naruto has forgotten who they are, the faces that he sees weekly at the very least and frequently at most. They gather at bars when time permits and seat ten at a table for twelve, pointedly talking of all and sundry that do not address two vacated chair, one from necessity and one from choice. They celebrate the little things in life; that six of the Rookie Twelve are still in their teams and are as tight as the day they were newly-minted ninjas, that they live another day, that there are things worth living for.

He doesn’t know if they truly celebrate or not. He doesn’t really care either way, but pretends to smile and cheer along all the same.

Sometimes, it looks like they notice he’s not quite the same. Naruto has never been and probably _will_ never be much of a liar, but that doesn’t stop him plastering smiles on his face. His friends are smart, some moreso than others, but even Shikamaru doesn’t probe after he says he’s okay, that he slept well, that whatever they asked him is good when it’s really not. The extra half-hour he devotes to smiling at himself in the morning and talking until the hoarse lump in his throat bleeds away is enough for him to reconstruct what once was, it would seem.

Of course, there are times when Naruto slips up. There are moments when he catches looks shared when nobody believes he’s looking or hands that linger a little longer and heavier than they should. He may be dense (and it’s not a point he refutes, not when he’s carried the title all his life) but he is not _that_ dense. Still, in the times he slips up, he laughs it off and moves onto other, less dangerous ground. In that, at least, he is still unfairly, unhappily predictable.

In that, at least, he will continue to keep the status quo that is neither normal nor healthy, but which allows others to pretend at happiness.

There will be moments that he runs calloused fingers against rough bandages, seeking out the faint green peeking out between loose loops, but otherwise Naruto doesn’t think about it too much. Remembering brings back things he cannot bring back, still has no _capacity_ to bring back, and he has experienced enough pain in life to spare himself this much, at least. Unpredictable and honour-bound he may have been, but this is one thing path he will not deviate from and one promise he will break.

Besides, he doubts anyone remembers anymore.

Even the one face Naruto forces himself to remember fades a little, day by day. Not even proximity or fervent wishes or time-worn photographs can recall the depths he has lost, and he does not know when he will ever refresh himself with the one anomaly that could break the fading, greyscale days.

His life plays out before him and he marches to the rhythm, a rusted clockwork doll with nothing better to do. Until a hand comes to wind him up again, he will creak through the motions as best as he can.

 

* * *

 

A shaft of sunlight, more yellow than white, slaps Naruto awake.

He comes to with a groan and a pop of an elbow, nose twitching valiantly in an attempt to hold back a sneeze. For a moment, he thinks he’s won, but then there’s a burst of black in his vision and he gives in, ribs pounding afterwards from the pressure. There’s more pounding in his body, more pain than he’s ever felt in his entire _life_ , but he’s never taken anything lying down. Even when he’s left panting and bereft of all but the sight of blossoming black circles when he’s done, he will _not_ take it lying down.

So instead of concentrating on the throbbing of his head or the way he’s feeling far too drowsy, Naruto takes inventory of himself. By the time he’s done, things are swimming into view and he isn’t fighting to take anything more than a shallow, inadequate breath… but things aren’t exactly looking up, either.

Naruto has one head, likely concussed before he woke and pounding as though he’d gotten wasted the night before. There are a pair of eyes, barely functional and fighting to stay open; a twitching nose, offended by the stench of antiseptics pervading it; a pair of lips, nicked in three places and dry to his fuzzy tongue. One arm feels like it’s dipped in boiling tallow; the other, immersed in a nest of fire ants. Everything between his lungs and his navel screams in disjoint voices and his legs are no better than blocks of steel weighing him down.

All in all, Naruto isn’t feeling too peachy. It’s likely why he’s not surprised to see white, from the sheets pooling around his waist to the highly sterilized floor, when his vision finally clears.

Being well-acquainted with Konoha’s hospital, no thanks to the injuries he’s accrued during his life, the first thing Naruto does is grimace at his predicament. There’s vague memories of blood and battle fighting to make themselves known, but the edges are tainted with sorrow and so he resolves to revisit them another time. For now, there’s a hospital room to leave and a home to return to, ramen bowls to devour and friends to reassure.

Naruto shimmies his legs until they’re dangling off the edge of his bed and lurches to his feet.

It _hurts_ , to put things nicely. His body sways alarmingly and he tries to steady himself, but the hand he tries to raise doesn’t come; there’s only air beside him and a throbbing, burning shoulder for his efforts. In the moments it takes for his vision to clear, he tastes blood in his mouth and sees the glint of teeth in his mind, a smile he had been waiting years for but which he cannot quite recall.

“Sasuke,” Naruto whispers, and almost stumbles to his knees.

The door slides open behind him, softer than his whisper and smoother than his movements. Three steps and there’s a presence at his back, hair tickling his ear and a hand pressed to his shoulder. Within moments, Naruto finds himself being pressed back into the sheets as a hand brushes over his wet cheeks (when had they become like that?) and a hand comes to rest over his chest, warm against his painfully thudding heart.

“Sasuke,” Naruto whispers again, a quiet prayer hovering between them.

The spots resolve themselves into a pale face, spiky black hair and a hospital gown hanging off a gaunt frame. Naruto pinches himself, just in case, but it blends in with all the other pain and he finds it in himself to grin and slide his hand, his one remaining hand, on top of his rival’s only one.

“Sleep, dead last,” Sasuke says, lips twisted in a disdainful expression that doesn’t reach his eyes.

Naruto wants to protest against the statement, shove what’s left of his right arm into Sasuke’s face to show him proof of it, but his words are caught in a yawn. His vision swims for a few brief moments, but then they resolve to show his bone-white face, hovering a bit above his own.

“Shut up, bastard,” Naruto grouses instead, around another yawn.

“Look who’s talking,” Sasuke replies, but there’s something peculiar tugging on his lips.

He savours the sight for a moment, sleep-dazed eyes drifting between Sasuke’s eyes and his mouth, but another yawn overtakes him and his eyelids begin sliding down.

“You’ll be here when I wake up, right?” Naruto mumbles, more unintelligible sounds than words.

There’s a murmur from somewhere above him, but he never catches it and soon, there is only silence and darkness clouding his senses.

 

* * *

 

“You’re going to leave again, aren’t you?” Naruto asks against a pale, sweat-slicked chest.

“Your stupidity never astounds me,” Sasuke quips into matted hair, and smirks at Naruto’s growl.

It’s a fact of life Naruto has come to accept, much like how the sun rises in the east and the sea is salty; Sasuke is a prickly bastard, and no force of nature can change that. He punches the body beneath him with a sloppy fist that barely connects and huffs, two parts annoyed and one part resigned. Being the insufferable nuisance that he is, Sasuke’s only response is soft rumbling laughter, but Naruto closes his eyes and presses an ear against his chest anyway.

There are some things he’s learnt to savour, and moments like these are just one of them.

The smile Sasuke gives him would be one that others would deem condescending; Naruto chooses to interpret it as long-suffering but mildly tender. It’s easy enough to ignore the shadow in his lover’s eyes, easier still to pretend that this is commonplace, but it takes far too much effort to keep his wryness from his answering smile. Given _that_ particular smile with _that_ particular look, Naruto finds his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth and a coldness forming in the pit of his stomach.

Yet there is a pleasant ache in his body and a flush half-faded in his cheeks. Sasuke’s body is warmer than it’ll ever be and he’s here, splayed out across his sheets, with a solidness he rarely feels. There is more than one body in his bed made for two, two plates half-finished on the dining table, and…

It’s enough, for now. It will have to be enough until life returns to normal.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Sasuke murmurs, and Naruto scrunches his nose five seconds too late.

This time, there’s a little more power behind the fist he thumps against Sasuke’s shaking body, but his glare melts into something softer when an arm tugs him closer. Once, Naruto would’ve considered it weak to give in without a fight; now, he makes a show of snuggling further into his lover’s pale chest and tracing nonsensical patterns over his stomach. The sigh he coaxes out is like rain over a desert; the barely-there smile on his lips, better than his ramen-filled cupboards.

Naruto can count the number of times he’s seen Sasuke relax on one hand. When they had been put in Team 7 together, with Sakura to buffer the abrasiveness of childhood rivalry and Kakashi to act as both mediator and catalyst, there had always been a tightness around his eyes. Even asleep, Sasuke had been a block of wood badly stuffed into his blankets.

He still doesn’t know what makes Sasuke relax like he does.

When morning comes, it will bring with it a reality Naruto’s avoided for the past weekend. He will wake to a note in a neat hand, promising a future that likely comes too late, and go off to his day. With time, the dishes will be cleared and the cupboards emptied of bran cereal he’ll never eat, and the memory of one more in his expansive house will fade into nothing, irrespective of his will.

For now, though, Sasuke is still by his side. For now, Naruto is given the luxury of nudging his hand against Sasuke’s until he relents with a huff and slides their fingers together. For now, there is another by his side, two to fill the empty spaces one could drown in, and he drifts to sleep with the steady sound of a heartbeat thumping loudly in his ear.

 

* * *

 

Naruto wakes to an itch beneath his skin and struggles to sit up in the foggy haze it brings. There is hardly anything to suggest that something is amiss; hospital rooms are bland, at best, and it takes no effort to sweep his eyes across the one he’s in. His bedside table is still overflowing with well wishes, wilting flowers and fading text sprawled on top of each other, and the curtains are all drawn back. Birdsong invades the silence and brings the faint sounds of laughter with it.

The pain in Naruto’s arm (or what’s left of it, anyway) throbs through him, just as strong as it did a fortnight ago. His head still spins with dreams half-forgotten and the region between his navel and chest still doesn’t feel like his own. The murmurs of nurses tending to their patients filters through the door, and the steady smack of liquid in his IV bag punctuates his thoughts.

Amidst all the noise, Naruto breathes in noisily and digs a hand into his chest. In between the thirtieth and thirty-first heartbeat—

_Sasuke where’s Sasuke gone_

—he sees the note on the room’s only chair.

In the back of his mind, there is a voice telling him to stay in bed and not move. It sounds suspiciously like the old hag’s, tinged with the weariness she has whenever she manhandles the unwilling and the stubborn back into their beds, but the thought disappears with the rattling cough in his chest. Another harsh intake of breath, and Naruto forces his legs to swing off the bed. Only willpower alone allows him to totter over without collapsing midway, but even that is not enough to fortify him against Sasuke’s words.

He’s barely read it all when the note slips through his fingers and flutters to the floor. There’s a roaring in his ears and bile clawing up his throat; soon, he registers nothing beyond the corrosive red chakra cloaking his aching limbs.

The resident nurse had told Naruto, when she last visited to fluff his pillow for the night, that he would need another week to regain full mobility and another still if he wanted to do anything strenuous. She had likely meant training or missions for the latter, but he still feels something tear inside when he leaps out the window, breaking his clumsy descent when he falls through a few branches. Grumbling at the old fox sleeping in his subconscious, he makes for the shadows and lets only a sliver of Kurama’s power cloak him, enough to ease his pain a little but not enough for it to be noticeable.

By the time he lands beyond the village’s walls, a few steps away from the main entrance, Naruto knows the hospital personnel will likely chain him to the bed. He can already hear strains of organized chaos drifting in the wind, a faint undertone beneath the murmuring that is closer still.

The ones responsible for that are just a few steps away, in the grey area between Konoha proper and its leafy forests; three people, to be exact. The tallest is Kakashi and the shortest, Sakura, but it’s the figure between them who catches Naruto’s eyes. Even his dull colours aren’t enough to conceal him.

Besides, there’s only one person who could make Kakashi look fondly exasperated and bring a flush to Sakura’s cheeks, and Naruto doesn’t even need to look at the ridiculous duck-butt hairstyle to see that their old Team 7 is back together again. It’s hard to breathe without pain ripping through his lungs, harder still to stand straight and ease a smile onto his lips, but it’s better than looking at the way Sakura’s eyes widen when Sasuke pokes her forehead. He pretends he’s counting so he can even out his breaths when Sasuke turns around, faint smile and all.

What is there to say to a person like this? Naruto has yelled his fill at Sasuke already, first at the Academy and then when they were genin, once at the Valley of the End and then in Orochimaru’s lair. Then it had been in the ruins of a ravaged Konoha; amidst the dead on a battlefield; in pools of lava and hills of sand. The Valley of the End had featured again, at the very end, along with the old song and dance about friendship, a promise, _feelings_ , and yet.

What is there to say to a person like this? What words should he use now, when the future looms so large and uncertain before him?

In the end, with Sasuke’s eyes gazing solemnly into his own, all Naruto says is, “I’m returning this.”

There is no sentiment to be voiced, no nonsense in his tone. He reaches for the battered forehead protector by his hip, a fleeting afterthought when he’d thrown himself out the window, and hands it to its owner. In the realm between consciousness and dreamless repose, he had thought of the way he’d say everything that had been on his mind.

Yet now, all he can do is watch Sasuke take away the forehead protector and smile at him. There is only the feel of faded cloth slipping through his fingers, and then…

When the medical intern finds him, long after Sasuke has left for places unknown, Naruto still doesn’t know what Sasuke’s smile meant. He only knows that there is a rictus affixed to his face and a peculiar blurriness to his eyes.

In a silent daze, Naruto turns back to the hospital and lets his thoughts die on his tongue.

 

* * *

 

The soft thump of sandals wakes Naruto from his reverie, but no words are exchanged between the newcomer and he. In silence, they stand a hair’s breadth apart, clasp their hands before their chests and bow their heads before the weathered plaque. A whispered prayer, a soft brush of fingers against day-old flowers, and Naruto turns from Neji’s final resting place with shadows in his eyes.

It’s not until they’re clear of the graveyard that Sasuke reaches for Naruto’s limp hand.

“You’re too sentimental for your own good, moron,” Sasuke murmurs, tone light despite the sombre undertone. A thumb brushes against the back of Naruto’s hand and he finds himself fighting between a smile and frown.

Eventually, Naruto settles for a petulant but no less muted, “I’d rather be sentimental than unfeeling, bastard.”

There’s a wry twist to Sasuke’s lips when he smirks a little in response, but Naruto carefully doesn’t say anything and the moment flits away. Hand in hand, because the only other people who are about at false dawn are patrolling the borders, they meander through the grass and pass by more graves.

It’s not as painful as it once was to gaze upon the casualties of the Fourth Shinobi War and pay his respects, but it’s not any easier to give voice to the thanks and the questions buried deep within. There are names of those that Naruto would know in his sleep and there are names he can’t pair with a face, anymore, but he stops and bows his head for them all.

They may not have died for an attack aimed at him, but they died to protect a home that has slowly left them behind. The least he could do is remember them for all the days of his life.

It’s not a common sentiment in Konoha, though. The bouquets atop Yamanaka Inoichi are less flowers than crumbling dirt, and the grass in front of Nara Shikaku grows tall and wild. No longer are there days when Shikamaru smoked and stared at the cloud whilst lying beside his father’s grave. No longer are there moments when Ino ruins her makeup with ugly sobs that wrack her thin body.

Naruto extends a trembling hand to brush fingers against every gravestone, shuts his eyes against the tears building up and whispers in as steady a voice as he can manage. In the coolness of the fading night, he tells them of the family they left behind, the days they no longer see and the peace they had fought and finally attained.

Throughout it all, there is a cool hand nestled in his. Sasuke doesn’t quite lower his eyes or offer his condolences to those he likely doesn’t remember anymore, but there are faint squeezes when Naruto almost drowns in the past and a shoulder to lean on, when he moves to another grave.

In the face of the excuses the others give, when they see Naruto burying himself amongst the dead…

The sun is well above the Hokage monument when Naruto bids farewell to the final grave, a civilian who had died at the hands of a Zetsu clone while carrying the wounded to safety. In silence, he turns to Sasuke and uses his free hand to dust grass stains off his knees, before he feels a squeeze to his other hand. A gentle breeze coaxes a dandelion seed onto Sasuke’s hair.

“Let’s go,” Sasuke says, before Naruto can lift his hand to brush it off.

For a moment, Naruto stares, and then he nods. When they leave the cemetery and old ghosts behind, the dandelion seed gently slides off Sasuke’s hair and floats back inside, forgotten by the men wrapped in each other’s presence.

 

* * *

 

The only thing on Naruto’s mind, as he wraps a hand around his hardening shaft, is Sasuke.

Pale beams of light spill through the cracks in his curtains as Naruto covers his mouth with the other hand, muffling the pants and gasps of his shame. Even though Sasuke’s hand had only ever touched him fleetingly, if not to kill then to maim, his mind conjures up pale fingertips and hazy black eyes. The knowledge that he’s drawing from old memories of anger and sorrow only make him whimper a little more and move his hand faster over his throbbing cock.

When did it start, this sick obsession with the last Uchiha? Naruto doesn’t doubt that every other self-respecting kunoichi had fallen for Sasuke’s charms at one point or another, but he is not one of curves and softness. The last time he had touched himself, his thoughts had been on soft pink hair and bright green eyes, heartbreak in a smile and an indomitable will. His wet dreams and showers had been filled with thoughts of the girl he had chased all throughout the Academy and half of his genin life.

Now, thoughts of Sasuke’s hooded eyes and semi-exposed chest are enough to make his cock leak precum.

Yet what was Naruto to do when he saw Sasuke like _that_ , after he’d travelled the world with Jiraiya? Being around the old pervert had exposed him to the most lascivious women, but no man had looked anything like him. For all the rumours he’d heard of Orochimaru, only silvery scars of old had adorned his skin.

Naruto’s skin, smooth from the old fox’s meddling, is hardly anything like Sasuke’s, but he lets one hand drift down his chest regardless. A loud moan spill past his lips when bandaged fingers catch on a pebbling nipple, growing louder still when he imagines the way Sasuke would smirk at his reaction.

 _Of course you’d take it like a man, dead last,_ he’d rumble, digging blunt nails into his skin. _Otherwise, what else would make you different from my squealing fangirls?_

More precum spurts from his cock when Naruto scrapes his fingers against the other nipple, and he cries out when a nail digs into his leaking slit.

Sometimes, Naruto wonders if Sasuke would ever smooth his palm against his cheek and press a kiss to his lips. Sometimes, he stops in the streets when he sees civilian couples see each other off or greet one another after a hard day’s work, and he thinks. Given the opportunity, would Sasuke rock into him deep and slow, whispering sweet nothings until he cums with a breathy sigh?

All he needs to do is rub his chest, where _his_ hand had plunged in to rip out his heart, and—

“ _Sasuke_ ,” Naruto moans, loud and half-muffled into his pillow.

Foreplay is for the lovers who haven’t tried to kill each other; love-making, for the innocent that have never stared death in the face. Sasuke would leave bruises and scars for as long as Kurama refuses to interfere, not because he’s staking his claim but because it would spur him on. What was sex but fleeting death? What was love when his heart was thousands of miles away?

He scrapes his bandaged (prosthetic, second-rate) hand against his cock and throws his head back, cumming with a choked cry over his red-raw chest. There is a fierce ache in his arm and the beginnings of a cramp in his legs, strained against the mattress as they’d been, but he gasps up at the ceiling and squeezes his eyes shut again. In time, he will move to the shower and wash himself, scrubbing until his skin glows pink and he smells like cheap shampoo.

But for now… just for a moment…

Away from the light of the moon, he pretends his eyes will dry faster than the cum on his chest.

 

* * *

 

Under the light of the setting sun, Sasuke’s skin is aflame with radiance. Orange and red dance on a tapestry ordinarily paler than bone, and it’s all Naruto can do to heave enough air in his lungs. Like this, he is every bit the creature of fire who could set fire to lakes without batting a lash.

Like this, it’s impossible to think of Sasuke as the cold, unfeeling bastard Naruto knows him to be.

There’s something aglow in Sasuke’s eyes that makes his breath catch in his throat, but Naruto’s head is spinning and he can hardly see anything past the black hair falling into his face. There are no teeth nipping at his bottom lip and no fingernails digging into his scalp, but the way his tongue delves and plunders his mouth is enough to fill Naruto’s mind with nothing but Sasuke, Sasuke, _Sasuke_. Sensations skitter down his spine with the way his cheek is cupped in one uncertain hand and he moans low and long, the sound reverberating between them.

They break for air and Naruto heaves lungfuls of air into himself, eyes half glazed over and lips swelling from the kisses before. There’s still that something aglow in Sasuke’s eyes, but his lips stay pursed and deliberately rigid as he trails his fingers through the whiskered grooves of his cheeks and caresses his throat, drifting until it splays over the frantic thudding of his heart. Is Sasuke’s beating like this, out of control and ready to jump out of his chest? Does he want to press himself as close as possible with the same visceral urge _he_ feels?

And what does this all mean at the end of the day, anyway? The seconds linger but it is Naruto who breaks the stillness, hand sliding up to press Sasuke’s more firmly against his chest. He curls his fingers between the gaps in Sasuke’s and, even through the heavy robes, he can feel their chill pebbling his nipple. If Sasuke can feel the reaction he’s eliciting from the pressure of his hand, he gives no indication of it beyond the twitch of his lips.

When they lean in to kiss again, it is only a chaste meeting of lips, but Naruto clutches Sasuke’s hand closer and squeezes his eyes shut. Even when he feels Sasuke pressing him down until he’s flush against the table, documents crumpled or scattered beneath him, he only arches deeper into the hard body against his own. He’ll clean up the mess tomorrow, when there’s nothing to distract him from his newfound duties and there isn’t a hand untangling from his own and slipping through the gaps to brush his stomach.

He’ll think about all this tomorrow, when the time is for thinking and not doing. Until then…

A gasp puffs through Naruto’s lips and Sasuke takes the opportunity for what it is, tongue delving in to plunder his mouth once more. Another gasp is lost between them when icy fingers wrap around his cock, smearing precum across his slit with lingering motions, but a few strokes are enough to warp it into a moan. Before long, it’s all he can do to breathe through his nose and catch every sigh, huff and groan Sasuke muffles in his mouth.

Before long, it’s all Naruto can do to keep his eyes open and on Sasuke as he spills between them, cum splattering over the body pressed to his own.

Had he been given any time to think or any moment for his eyes to wander, Naruto might’ve pushed Sasuke away, then. With the eyes of six Hokage staring sightlessly from the wall and the last rays of sunlight catching on the expansive windows… in his right mind, he wouldn’t be sprawled, loose-limbed and woozy, over important documents smudged into utter illegibility. In his right mind, he wouldn’t be consorting with someone the village still hasn’t accepted in one of Konoha’s most sacred places.

Yet all Naruto can see and hear and touch is Sasuke. Sasuke’s eyes, half-closed and sated. Sasuke’s tongue, licking at his fingers. Sasuke’s throat, swallowing remnants of his cum.

“Sasuke,” Naruto whispers, and closes his eyes when a forehead presses against his own.

The finger slipping into him feels unnatural, discomforting in a way that would’ve made him recoil at another time, but Naruto only furrows his brow and pressed himself closer to Sasuke, even as Sasuke presses deeper into him. Lubricated by sweat, saliva and remnants of his cum, he feels the burn arcing up his spine before long. It’s at odds with the evidence of Sasuke’s arousal, a localized fire branding him in the space between trousers and robes and more trousers, but soon he can’t tell one thing from another.

There is only Naruto, and Sasuke. Naruto and Sasuke, trapped with each other for a moment in time, pressed so tightly together that they’re breathing the same air. It wouldn’t even be that bad to merge into one being, at the rate that he’s going.

A being of biting fire and smouldering passion, of words unspoken and feelings unnamed. Of the pain low on his body and of the fever on his brow, litanies of his name falling breathlessly into heated air. Something hysterical bubbles up at the thought, but the only thing that slips out is a loud moan when Sasuke presses against something and fireworks flare to life behind his eyelids.

It’s Naruto’s name that Sasuke whispers when he uncovers himself and spits into his palm. It’s Naruto’s name that Sasuke breathes when he lines himself up and bottoms out, inch by agonizing inch. It’s Naruto’s name that Sasuke moans when the deathly grip on his hand eases the slightest bit and he starts to move, gazing into a blurry blue he could drown in.

It’s Naruto’s name on repeat in Naruto’s head until all he can think about is Naruto, Naruto, _Naruto_ and then—

 

* * *

 

Stress lines deeper than Naruto’s whisker-marks carve furrows into Kakashi’s face, making a face that once seemed handsome and carefree feel old and careworn. There’s no longer a spryness to his hair or cunning intent in his tardiness, and the loss is enough to make him avert his eyes guiltily. His old teacher had been unwilling to take the mantle when it’d been passed to him; any old buffoon had known that. Now that Naruto is standing before him, months after he’d finally acquiesced to the inevitable and taken the hat, all he can see is not reluctance, but resignation.

It’s a look Naruto’s familiar with; he sees it whenever there’s a mirror close by. The droop of Kakashi’s eyes no longer speak of hidden complacency, no more than his own smiles speak of optimistic sincerity.

“Rokudaime,” Naruto utters a touch too late, bowing to his old teacher in jerky increments.

He doesn’t catch the faint narrowing of Kakashi’s eyes, but Naruto hears him clearing his throat all too well. Straightening up, he watches masked ANBU slip through the door and shut it behind themselves, until they are alone in the room. A pregnant pause, a heavy sigh, and then…

“Make yourself comfortable,” Kakashi says, and Naruto hesitantly slips into the chair offered to him.

Kakashi waves to the tea steaming away on the table and steeples his fingers, pinning Naruto with a gaze he can neither discern nor avoid. This time, when he looks up and mumbles his thanks, the pall of silence is heavy on his shoulders. Sweat beads on his forehead as he breaks eye contact.

By the time Kakashi breaches the silence with another sigh, Naruto’s ready to crawl out of his skin.

“Uchiha Sasuke.” Naruto’s eyes snap to Kakashi, but his old teacher continues talking in his usual mild voice. “You’re aware that the Council doesn’t trust him, right?”

A pause, a furrow of his brow, and then—

“Who isn’t?” Naruto shoots back.

If Kakashi notices the way Naruto’s mouth pinches at the edges or the white-knuckled grip he has on the chair’s arms, he doesn’t show it. All he does is clasp his hands and rest them on the table as he murmurs, “It wasn’t a trick question, if that’s what you’re wondering.

“I just needed you to know,” Kakashi continues softly, ignoring the way Naruto’s eyes widen and his mouth opens a little. “They’ve been keeping tabs on everyone they suspect. Everyone who’s ever attempted to retrieve him, everyone who’s a public sympathiser with the Uchihas after news of the massacre leaked out—”

“And obviously,” Naruto interjects, “I’m at the top of their list, aren’t I?”

“Do you really need to ask?” Kakashi answers, a touch of his familiar wryness in his tone.

Naruto takes a good look at Kakashi, taking in the slump in his shoulders and the shadows beneath his eyes. The viced grip he has on his chair loosens incrementally until his hands are resting against it, but he doesn’t look away until his old teacher does first, lowering his eyes to the table with another world-weary sigh.

“So,” Naruto starts, moments before he drowns in the silence, “why’re you telling me this?”

Another pregnant pause hangs in the air, lingering well past its time before Kakashi dispels it.

“I’ve been looking for a successor to my position, and the Council’s finally approved of my first choice.” It’s blunt, moreso than anything his old teacher usually says, which is all the more reason for Naruto’s eyes to widen as Kakashi dryly adds, “I suppose you know what I mean, given your expression.”

“But I…” It’s instinctive for Naruto to offer up protest, instinctive that he shy away from a dream that could come true. The words tumble over each other as they claw up his throat but die in his mouth, and no amount of swallowing can clear the block they form there.

Thankfully (or not, depending on how he looks at things), Kakashi finishes his statement for him.

“Am the hero of Konoha? Saved the entire shinobi world from disaster?” There’s wrinkles in Kakashi’s mask that speak of humour, but his eyes are completely serious as he continues. “The Council can only do so much to oppose you before the citizens put you there themselves.”

Naruto stares flatly at Kakashi and presses insistently against the seal on his stomach. “And nobody cares about… y’know… the whole deal with me and Kurama?”

The speaking look Kakashi gives him is enough to make Naruto deflate.

“The only solid excuse they had,” Kakashi eventually says, “was your connection to Sasuke.”

“After everything he’s done?” Naruto asks, aghast.

“ _Especially_ after everything he’s done,” Kakashi echoes, his gaze cold and hard. “Not everyone can forgive as easily as you, Naruto, and not even saving everyone from Madara and Kaguya will erase the things he’s done against Konoha. You of all people should know how deep prejudice runs.”

“And yet, look who you’re tapping as the next Hokage,” Naruto mutters.

This time, Kakashi’s sigh fills the air between them.

“The Council have allowed me to choose you as the successor based on Sasuke’s non-contact,” Kakashi slowly says, untangling a hand to press at the furrow in his brow, “and they probably won’t give you a chance like this again. So I need to know: do you want the position or not?”

That was the critical question, wasn’t it? All Naruto had ever dreamt of was laid out before him on a gilded platter; all he needed to do was reach forth, claim it as his own and take it. Acknowledgement, the title of the strongest, the power to protect his precious people. Someone ( _several_ someones, really) had offered it to him with no strings attached…

But that wasn’t quite true, was it? There was little the Council could do to him once he became Hokage, short of levelling an accusation so severe that it would tarnish him forever, but there was still something they could do.

Naruto is dense, but he’s not _that_ dense.

“There’s conditions, aren’t there?” Kakashi’s brow arches at Naruto’s query, but he pushes on anyway. “What does the Council want if they’re just going to give me the position?”

Naruto can see the cogs whirring in Kakashi’s brain, but all his old teacher says is, “What do you think?”

He shuts his eyes, then, and slumps into his chair. What would he give up for the chance of a lifetime; what _was_ he willing to give up for the chance of a lifetime? What would the Council want and was that going to affect him disastrously? He fists a hand into the fabric just above his heart, takes a deep breath to push away his clamouring thoughts, then forces his eyes open.

“Fine,” he says, because– what else can he say? “Fine, I’ll take it.”

There’s a softness around his eyes and a smile beneath his mask when Kakashi replies, “I knew you would.”

Because this is his dream, because the one offering it was a teacher who he thought would never care for him, Naruto smiles back. Only force of habit keeps it on his face when the thoughts die in his head.

 

* * *

 

There’s no place to hide from his thoughts atop the Hokage monument, near the spot where his face will be set in stone forever. On a day when the citizens of Konoha are drinking and celebrating the promotion of a new Hokage, the son of the Fourth and the student of the Sixth, there is no light in his eyes and no smile on his face. The ANBU assigned to guard him have been dismissed, sent off so they can enjoy a rare evening off with their family, so he’s allowed himself to drop the façade.

The only company Naruto has, as he stares out over the village, are stone effigies immortalized in time, and those will tell no tales whilst he sits and drowns in his thoughts.

A soft breeze ruffles gently at his hair, making a few strands curl into his eyes. Naruto brushes it out of his face and briefly considers taking a wind jutsu to his hair, but the amount of chakra it’d need (not to mention the collateral damage) is enough to make him huff out a laugh. Perhaps it was time for him to find a new barber, or maybe it was time to consider shaving it to save him the trouble.

Then the double thump of sandals registers at the back of his mind.

Who would abandon their family to spend a day with him? There’s few people Naruto can think of who fit the bill and fewer still who would go out of their way to act on it, but the person who lowers themselves by his side wasn’t even someone he’d considered. Given that he hasn’t seen him for the past _year_ , he thinks he can be forgiven for staring– but if Sasuke’s aware of the way Naruto’s eyes are almost bugging out of his head, his only giveaway is the faint slant to his mouth.

That is, until he murmurs an amused, “I didn’t know they accepted frogs as Kages.”

Naruto twitches at the insult and growls, a handful of decibels lower than the average person’s, but Sasuke only quirks a brow and turns to look at Konoha. Like this, with the breeze tousling his hair and a faint smile playing on his lips, there are no words to describe him. Even if there were, Naruto doubts he’d be able to get it out.

Because Sasuke is back after a year and he’s… here. Tangible, physical, just a hair’s breadth away from his shoulder; all he needs to do is reach forward and they’d be touching. The urge is so visceral that Naruto finds himself brushing Sasuke’s hand before he can think better of it.

Yet all Sasuke does is snort and say, “Touchy, aren’t we?”

“If you’re trying to be funny, that didn’t work,” Naruto quips.

Given that Sasuke is staring right at his twitching mouth, though, he soon gives it up as a lost cause and succumbs to a smile. The strange half-quirk Naruto gets in response isn’t too bad, as things often go with the bastard, but the sound of laughter drifting up from the village is enough to make his mirth fade. Soon enough, there’s only the ghost of the village’s merriment dancing between them.

There’s questions crammed to the brim in Naruto’s head and comments pouring out of his ears, but the first thing he voices is a soft, “Why are you here?”

The silence stretches so long that he thinks he needs to repeat himself.

He’s barely raised a hand to clear his throat when Sasuke shrugs and turns away again. It’s only luck and a sudden gust of wind that allows him to hear, “What’s it to you?”

What’s it to _him?_ What relevance does Sasuke’s presence, a man who nobody could track down and who has more enemies than friends in the village, have upon Naruto, the newly-elected Hokage whose very term depended on this asshole’s absence? He very nearly lunges over to grab Sasuke by the collar, just so he can shake some sense into his stupid, self-absorbed head, but…

“If you really want to know,” Sasuke says, dusting off imaginary particles from his pants as he stands, “I’ll wait for you in your office. Otherwise, enjoy being a loser on your own.”

Before Naruto can so much as draw in a breath, Sasuke shuts his eyes and disappears in a cloud of smoke. It’s not until one of his assigned ANBU blurs into existence on his right that he realizes who (or, rather, _what_ ) he was talking to. By the time he waves his guard off, assuring him that he’d dispelled a clone after a quick spar, the sun’s beginning to dip beneath the horizon and his shadow looms behind him, stretching away into the distance.

Yet for all its exaggerated length, it will never be long enough to capture Sasuke, let alone hold him down. With a wry smile at his own dark thoughts, Naruto pushes them from his mind and leaps off his father’s head in one long stride.

For better or for worse, he has an appointment to keep. Whether it’s for his own sake or Sasuke’s is another question entirely, but he carefully shoves it down before he loses himself again.

 

* * *

 

In the fanfare and the ceremony, the pomp and the splendour, Naruto becomes the seventh Hokage. With a few official words and a smile from everyone present, he takes the hat and pledges his life to the village he grew up in. When he turns to face everyone, the applause is so deafening that he can hear no other sound apart from it.

He bends at the waist, lowers his gaze to the ground and pretends the tears gathering in his eyes are from happiness alone.

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline is deliberately ambiguous for a reason, but the whole fic takes place in the span of... two years, roughly speaking. I understand that my interpretation of a 'realistic' canon may be different from other people's, but this isn't my only interpretation, just the one I chose to write a series on. Either way, if you'd like to know more about the fic, including additional things not mentioned here and other tidbits, please consult my [tumblr](http://chiarosekuro.tumblr.com/) or [this associated link](http://chiarosekuro.tumblr.com/waffles).
> 
> [ Edited April 20, 2017 - spelling errors + a forgotten tag ]


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